Spatiotemporal Patterns of Contact Across the Rat Vibrissal Array During Exploratory Behavior.

ABSTRACT: The rat vibrissal system is an important model for the study of somatosensation, but the small size and rapid speed of the vibrissae have precluded measuring precise vibrissal-object contact sequences during behavior. We used a laser light sheet to quantify, with 1 ms resolution, the spatiotemporal structure of whisker-surface contact as five naïve rats freely explored a flat, vertical glass wall. Consistent with previous work, we show that the whisk cycle cannot be uniquely defined because different whiskers often move asynchronously, but that quasi-periodic (~8 Hz) variations in head velocity represent a distinct temporal feature on which to lock analysis. Around times of minimum head velocity, whiskers protract to make contact with the surface, and then sustain contact with the surface

SUBMITTER: Hobbs JA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4700281 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature